A/N: Okay I know this update was uploaded a day late and that I haven't updated my quicksilver fanfiction either, there are two reasons for this. The first one being that I'm moving into my sisters house, I've finished with school and that means that I've finished with my mum - it's a long story you don't care about, and it makes it sound like I'm basing Summer on me but I swear I'm not. The second thing is that I didn't like the ending I had for this story, it wasn't spectacular enough, so I've changed it and I'm now in the process of writing that and seen as it's only the last few chapters they're special and want to give them my full attention which means working longer, so that's why my Quicksilver fanfiction has yet to be updated.
Also, I've decided that I don't want to do a revival of my old fanfiction, I've read through it and I've tried to think of ways to improve it and make it longer but I can't do much with what I have and as an author I only want perfection for my faithful readers. Saying that, I may still edit the fifteen chapters and upload them once a week. Sound good?
This chapter is dedicated to Anya Tepes,
To Blondeconspiracy, my mum ALWAYS catches (guess that is caught now that I've moved out) me while I'm crying, it's like she senses it and whenever it's over a tv show she'll laugh at me. It's so embarrassing, I understand your pain!
Thank you to integri-tea, vilevillian, BiancaTSparrow and Romantic Obsession. I loved your comments and I'm glad you enjoyed the last chapter, I hope you all have a wonderful life!
Thank you to anyone who read the last chapter, you're all beautiful people whether you believe me or not!
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
"Man only likes to count his troubles; he doesn't calculate his happiness."
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Summer stood in front of the mirror, checking that her floral dress fitted her body perfectly and that there weren't any imperfections with her outfit, she then made sure to stroke her fingers through her recently cut hair. She was trying to make herself look in order, something which she wasn't use to after living years in a messy apartment and dressing herself up in boys clothes whenever she could get the chance.
"You ready to go Summer? The taxi's here." Bucky yelled just before entering her room, dressed in a casual white shirt and tie. He stopped at the door, hand on the frame, as he looked her up and down with a small smile forming on his face. "You look beautiful," he sighed dreamily. It wasn't like she wasn't always beautiful, to him, it's just that she became even more beautiful when she tried.
"Come on," he said after realising his comment had made her uncomfortable - she still had yet to get use to that sort of attention, they weren't officially dating yet. And by that, I mean that they don't introduce each other as boyfriend and girlfriend but anyone watching how they were around each other would think they were officially dating.
He turned around and begun to walk off. "Wait Bucky, before we go…" she called, running towards him and latching her hand around his arm. He took a second to look down at the hand wrapped around his arm and then he looked up to face her, noticing the scared look in her eyes. "My mother, she's not a very nice person. I'm just- I'm apologising in advance." She stammered out, looking down at the floor as a dark emotion loomed over her heart.
"Summer, what did she do to you?" He asked with a soft tone, grasping her head in his large hands. Her green eyes connected with his blue ones and revealing an entire array of emotions, emotions that he was only seeing for the first time. It was a mixture of pain, fear, a foreboding of a qualm unresolved, she didn't want to go and he wished that he knew why.
"Nothing that I want to recall right before I'm about to see her." She explained quietly, taking a step back from him and then waking around his body, keeping some distance and rebuilding a large wall so that Bucky couldn't see the broken girl that she really was. "Let's go." She croaked, making her way out of the bedroom as fast as possible.
"Summer are you ready?" Bruce asked, entering the kitchen which she was currently sat in.
She was leaning over one of the counter tops, eating a large batch of pancakes. She looked up, obviously surprised by his appearance, and it was quite the sight; her cheeks were puffed out and filled with food, syrup was dribbling down her cheeks and her eyes were open wide. She swallowed it down, making a loud gulping sound, "yes, sorry, I'm just eating the leftover pancakes."
Bruce quirked an eyebrow, "weren't those Clint's?" He asked as she joined him in walking down towards the elevator.
She shrugged with a devious smirk, enjoying the idea of aggravating Clint. "Yeah, but it's just funny when he's annoyed. Not that he's that bothered right now seen as he's that Daisy girl." She beamed, raising her voices pitch on the last part so she sounded more feminine.
"Yeah, I heard about that, do you think it's for real?" He asked in a joking tone as the doors opened, revealing a long hallway which lead to a door to the training room.
"I think it's his choice." Summer replied, her own mind turning to thinking about Bucky.
Things had been great between them lately, after the engagement they had been nothing but happy with one another. It was much different then their first engagement, for one thing, she'd already had the ring. Secondly, they were both more then ready to get married - it only took them over seventy years.
Bruce looked over towards her and saw the slightly dreamy expression on her face, a small smile of his own forming at the realisation of who she was thinking about."You must still be quite busy with your own relationship though right?" Summer looked over to her partner with a confused look, as far as she knew, no one had been informed of her and Bucky's engagement. "JARVIS is actually quite the gossip." He explained to her, the both of them finally reaching the room.
Summer opened the door for him, "JARVIS told you that Bucky asked me to marry him?"
Bruce shook his head, no. "He told Tony, who then told me."
"Of course Tony told you, you are science bros after all." He confided, stepping in to the middle of the room and allowing her to follow him.
"Science bros? I like that, I think I'll use that more often." He chortled, "are you ready to do this?"
"Sure, what do I blow up." She spoke confidently, opening her arms and signalling to the room, her eyes looking around and trying to find an item which she'd have to aim her power on. It's what they'd done so far, just the objects had gotten bigger and bigger. It started with a glass and last time she blew up a scrap piece of metal from one of Tony's suits.
"No it's going to be different this time." Bruce confided, making Summer become extremely stupefied and embarrassed as she'd been so excited to just blow up stuff again. She'd become quite addicted to it. "This time there' is only a choice."
"A choice?"
"Yes." He announced."You get to choose between learning how to control your powers enough to be able to control it most of the time, or learning how to not use it. At all."
Summer and Bucky arrived at the doorway but before Summer could even knock, the door swung open and revealed a man who looked rather scruffy. He walked in to the two and when he saw them a look of alarm crossed his face before he quickly recovered. "Oh sorry," he muttered before turning back around and kissing the under dressed woman behind him, "bye baby." He winked towards her after handing her some money which she slyly slipped into the pocket of her short dressing gown.
"See you later." She flirted back, taking a quick drag from the cigarette held between two of her fingers.
She looked quite a lot like Summer, she shared the same ginger hair and green eyes, the same body shape. The only difference as far as Bucky could see was the personality and the fashion sense.
"Really mum? You've turned to prostitution now?" Summer scoffed, running her hand through her hair in frustration. She was almost glad that she could barely feel emotions at that point as she didn't feel the embarrassment that she'd probably acquire from the man she was having sexual intercourse with, seeing her mother in such a manor.
The mother took another drag of the cigarette, looking down at the two with bored eyes. "Really Summer, you want to talk about my sex life in front of your boyfriend? Classy." She quipped back before turning around, twitching her hand towards the doorway so they knew to follow her in.
"And you know all about classy don't you." Summer drawled, allowing Bucky to take her hand in his behind her without her mother noticing.
The mother apparently snapped after hearing those vicious words from her daughter and she finished her cigarette, "I invited you around for a meal, I made the meal, I'm making an effort. Now you do the same." She scolded. She let out a throaty cough and patted down her messy hair, turning to Bucky and leaning against the stair frame, looking the soldier up and down. "I apologise for her behaviour." The mother purred, "allow me to get properly dressed," she began to strut up the stairs, wiggling her behind with each step.
Bucky hadn't been paying attention to the mother though, if anything he'd just begun to hate her more and more. He gave a gentle squeeze to Summer's hand, "you okay?"
"I'm always okay." She forced a smile on to her face, though in her heart that dark emotion which hovered above her heart was growing bigger and bigger, casing her distress.
Summer was thinking over her words carefully, thinking over the two choices and the consequences of them both. She swallowed. "Using it, that could lead to hurting people - like Bucky - or just strangers. I've killed already, I'm now familiar with the feeling you get after committing murder and I don't want to give myself the chance to ever feel that again." She looked up to Bruce, the sincerity of her following sentence bleeding out of her eyes, "I want to learn how to stop the power."
"Great." Bruce smiled, clapping his hands together. "So first things first, you need to know that we can't ever make the power go away."
"I know that." Summer agreed, tugging at the ginger locks on her head.
"What you need is an anchor, something or someone to think about to stop the power inside of you getting the better of you." Bruce explained, moving his hands around to express his sentence further.
"What do you mean?" Summer was still confused as to what he meant, it was like he was speaking a new language entirely.
Bruce turned towards the doorway at the other end of the room. "Bucky!"
The door swung open and Summer's fiancé shuffled into the room, wearing a vest so his metal arm was revealed, though both of his hands were placed in his pockets. He obviously felt awkward. "Hey."
Summer was surprised that he felt as uncomfortable as she did, maybe he was just as confused. As Bucky walked closer she held out her hand and he grasped it, the both of them feeling infinitely more comfortable with one another by their side. "So, your saying, think of Bucky is my time of troubles?" She asked, slowly beginning to make sense of what Bruce meant.
"You love Bucky right?"
"Correct." She answered with a curt nod of her head, feeling Bucky's thumb slowly begin to caress her hand.
"Then he's your perfect anchor," Bruce jeered, signalling to Bucky with both of his hands "he's the one person you'd never want to hurt, He's the one person who'd you confide, who'd keep you safe of him."
"While I agree with all of that, I still don't understand how he can be an anchor."
"When you feel like you're about to blow, just imagine being with him. It doesn't matter if you're just looking at him, talking to him, touching him, whatever." Summer looked down at the floor and blushed a deep red which almost matched the shade of her hair when Bruce brought up the whole 'touching' part, he quickly continued on, keeping her mind on the task at hand. "When you're in moments of distress just think of him and you should calm down. He'll keep you from floating away, like a anchor."
"So you see, the last man she was ever with wanted to get her some help, he thought she was that much of a nut job." The mother joked, a wine glass in her hand which vibrated with her fits of giggles,"and let's be honest, who doesn't think she's crazy." She continued, blind to the annoyance which was beginning to form on Summer and Bucky's expression.
They were now sat in the dining room, sat around a large table which had quite the spread prepared on it; there was a mixture of snack foods and meal-type foods, including a steak which was in the middle of the table, there were also bottles of wine speckled. The mother had already taken one for herself while Bucky and Summer drunk water.
"You only think I'm crazy over stupid things, like I'm smart and haven't aimed for a husband and three kids my entire life." She sighed, sipping the water and wishing that it was whiskey and not plain water.
"It isn't that honey, it's just that you're abnormal. I couldn't even introduce you to my friends because you were too much of a freak, always wanting to wear boy clothes and talking about space and how one day we might be able to explore up there, plus you were always talking down about God!" The mother gulped down more of the wine and sent Bucky a festering look, as though she found it amusing and thought that Bucky would find her berating Summer to be funny.
Summer stilled, "you're lying," she spat.
"Don't be petulant, child. how this man can even stand your behaviour is beyond me." Again the mother spoke as though her words were light-hearted but even Bucky, a man who had only just met this women, could feel the spiteful undertone.
"I love her behaviour," Bucky intruded, "I love all her quirks and as her mother you should too."
Summer decided to ignore the words Bucky had just crowed, blocking out anything he said after the word 'love' entered his sentence. "Bucky don't even try, the woman is too far up her own bottom that she can't even hear peoples words." Every impulse in her body was pushing her to jump out of the seat but she was fighting against them.
"Oh I can hear darling, I can hear that he's deluded by your good looks - which you got from me of course." The mother snapped while beginning to refill the now empty glass with more wine.
Summer sighed, screwing the pride which she wanted to have over her mother. She lifted the napkin from her lap and she through it down on the table. "You know what? I thought I could do this, but I can't." She stormed out the room, stopping by the doorway and turning to face Bucky, "I'm going, Bucky?" He nodded his head in agreement with her and stood up, beginning to follow her out of the house.
"Why do you never make an effort Summer? I've done nothing but try my hardest to please you." The mother yelled while following her extremely infuriated daughter where she eventually stopped walking and gave up trying. "Fine, be the freak that we all know you are and ignore your mother for no reason at all!"
Pure agony struck Summer's soul and she turned around in a furious temper, about ready to tear her own mother's head off. "Shut up!"
"Summer," Bucky warned, gently grasping her hand and tugging on it, trying to drag her away from the evolving situation which could only doom her and cause Summer to become more emotionally scarred then before.
"No, Bucky, she deserves to know seen as she's so perfect and all she wants to hear is stuff about herself." Summer tugged her arm out of Bucky's hand and turned to her mother with a sharp gaze, in her mind she was stabbing the woman repeatedly. "Well listen to this, Mother," she started, "you are not perfect. You are abusive, stupid and not my mother. I may have come from your womb but I am not your daughter. 'I don't understand you' is not a good enough excuse as to why you treated me like shit. You may have fooled everyone else but not me, I gave you a million chances because I'm your daughter and I was stupid enough to think that meant something. Goodbye mother, for the last time."
Summer finished her rant and turned away with a flick of her orange hair as she rounded the corner of her mothers house, ready to walk all the way to the main road in hope to find a taxi that could take her home.
"Summer, stop." Bucky ordered while trying to catch up with her, when he got to her though, he found a broken shell of the strong defensive woman he use to know. Sobs were racking her body and the make-up around her eyes was falling down her cheeks. "Summer," he intoned, his heart breaking at the sight. He wrapped his arms around her body and pulled her body close to his, allowing her to nestle her head into the crook of his neck, "It's okay, shhh." he shushed.
She continued to cry into his shoulder and he just said what came straight to his mind. "I'm here for you Summer, I always will be."